When
we met in Jakarta on June 21 and July 2,
2001 General Prabowo spoke at length
about his work with and for the United
States.

Prabowo told me "I was the American's
fair-haired boy."

He said he had been "very good friends"
with US intelligence, reporting to them
"maybe weekly or more," had served as a
go-between to convey US messages to
Suharto, and had even gone so far as to
help bring US troops into Indonesia for
exercises the Pentagon used to prepare
its' "contingency plan for entry to
Indonesia," i.e. "the invasion
contingency."

But at the time we spoke Prabowo had
recently been denied a US visa.

His sense of grievance about this was
palpable.

It was easy to understand why.

Prabowo had served Washington through
years of torture and massacre. The US
had backed him warmly, with sponsorship,
weapons, and public praise.

Prabowo was not just Indonesia's single
most intensively US-trained officer,
but, so far as I can tell, he was
Washington's closest Indonesian armed
forces protégé ever. Much of Prabowo's
power came from the fact that he was
Washington's man as well as Suharto's.

But the instant he lost an inter-army
power struggle in 1998, the US had
jilted Prabowo in favor of his most
hated rival (Wiranto), and now they were
piously criticizing him for crimes he
had committed with US support, and, to
top it off, had added the indignity of
the visa denial.

Prabowo had served Washington
through years of torture and
massacre. The US had backed him
warmly, with sponsorship, weapons,
and public praise. But the instant
he lost an inter-army power struggle
in 1998, the US had jilted Prabowo.

When Prabowo -- by way of complaint --
went on to me about his years of loyal
service to Washington, it was clear to
me he was not boasting. He was simply
stating the facts.

--------

Prabowo told me he had "always
identified with the US. It was something
I got from my family."

Though he had previously been a minister
in the government of Sukarno,
Indonesia's founding president,
Prabowo's father had been involved in
the CIA-backed operation to oust
Sukarno.

Prabowo told me he grew up imbued with
US Anti-Communism, and had supported the
US when it went into countries like
Cambodia and Afghanistan.

"Prabowo is very pro-American. He went
to American high school, American grade
school. I mean, you know, he's been
going to American school all his life.
He went to Special Forces, he was in
Fort Benning, Fort Bragg. You know, I'm
pro-American. Until recently I was an
investor in California, in a big way, in
the oil business."

Hashim promised that if Prabowo becomes
president of Indonesia: "Yes, the US
will be a privileged partner with a
GERINDRA administration."

(GERINDRA is Prabowo's political party,
which Hashim helps to finance. [See
video link, starting at around the
56:32 time stamp]).

Two months before our first meeting I
saw Prabowo speak and work the crowd at
a gathering in Jakarta of the
US-Indonesia investor/ military elites
(the Van Zorge conference, 2001).

Prabowo professed his devotion to the
doctrines of two US Civil War generals,
William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S.
Grant (later US president), both of whom
had embraced the tactic of occasionally
killing many civilians.

Prabowo remarked "I know more US history
than Indonesian history."

Follow
ETAN:

When we spoke, I was struck by Prabowo's
emotion when he talked about America.

Prabowo said to me with rising anger
that his fellow Indonesian officers used
to mock him, calling him "The American
officer" because he was so close to the
United States.

He said that they made fun of him -- and
implied he was unmanly -- because his
English was so good and he spent so much
time with the foreigners.

Prabowo told me he was "Very good
friends with DIA (the US Defense
Intelligence Agency) back to George
Benson."

Benson spent decades going in and out of
Indonesia for US intelligence.

For his work in Indonesia Colonel Benson
was inducted into the Defense
Intelligence Agency "Hall of Fame."

After leaving the DIA, Benson
represented Suharto's Pertamina oil
company in Washington, and became a
leading promoter of US corporate entry
into Indonesia.

In 1994 Benson , the Prabowo circle, and
US business, diplomatic, and
intelligence figures helped launch the
United States - Indonesia Society
(USINDO). USINDO worked to fight the
rising grassroots movement to cut off US
aid to Suharto's ABRI (a
movementI was
deeply involved with), and to defend
US corporate interests in Indonesia like
the huge miner Freeport McMoRan.

Prabowo's father, Sumitro, and brother
Hashim sat on USINDO boards. USINDO has
established a fellowship to honor
Sumitro.
Corporate sponsors of USINDO have
included the Lippo Group, Freeport
McMoRan, Texaco, Mobil, Raytheon, GE,
Hughes Aircraft and Merril Lynch.
Prabowo was reportedly, through his
wife, Suharto's daughter Titiek,
involved in business with Merril Lynch.

USINDO was the group to which Hashim
gave his
2013 Washington speech that promised
that a Prabowo presidency would treat
the United States as "a privileged
partner" (see above).

--------

Prabowo told me he was "on the phone
frequently with US intel, McFetridge and
the others, maybe weekly or more."

Prabowo said that such was the US
confidence in him that they used him
to convey messages to his
father-in-law, Suharto. He said that
at one point late in the 1998
uprising that brought down Suharto,
his US handlers confided to him that
the US government had concluded that
Suharto had suddenly lost his
usefulness.

He was referring to Colonel Charles D.
(Don) McFetridge of the DIA. McFetridge
was one of Col. George Benson's
successors in Indonesia, and the
1994-'98 US Defense Attaché in Jakarta.

McFetridge also dealt directly with
Prabowo's Kopassus Group 4 commander,
Colonel Chairawan, according to
interviews I had with Chairawan and US
officials. (See my piece in The Nation
[US], issue dated June 15, 1998, "Our
Men in Jakarta").

The DIA was working with Prabowo and
Chairawan throughout the time they were
implicated in the abduction, torture,
and murder of the Jakarta activists
(1997-'98).

Thirteen of those abductees are still
missing, presumed dead.

One of Prabowo's campaign leaders --
General Kivlan Zein --
says he knows where the bodies are
buried.

Col. McFetridge, who had attended
SESKOAD, the Indonesian army staff and
command school, went on to help run
security for the multinational oil and
gas giant BP, particularly on their
BP-Tangguh gas extraction project in
West Papua.

Prabowo told me he didn't deal with the
CIA but rather the DIA.

He said the CIA liaison was with BAKIN,
which reported directly to the armed
forces commander.

Prabowo asserted that within the
Indonesian armed forces, deference to
DIA people was normal. "If the US
Attaché calls the ABRI military chief of
staff and wants a meeting he gets a
meeting."

Prabowo said that such was the US
confidence in him that they used him to
convey messages to his father-in-law,
Suharto.

He said that at one point late in the
1998 uprising that brought down Suharto,
his US handlers confided to him that the
US government had concluded that Suharto
had suddenly lost his usefulness.

Prabowo told me he went to Suharto and
conveyed the message: the US is "no
longer with you."

But Prabowo told me that Suharto
replied: "'No, the US is still with me,
someone just came from DC and told me.'"

Prabowo said Suharto "got angry and
threw me out."

It is possible that Prabowo and Suharto
were, in a sense, both correct.

As Suharto lost his ability to repress
effectively, the US moved to dump him,
as they have done with many others.

But they did so only grudgingly, and
with division in the US ranks.

It is plausible that Prabowo and Suharto
could have gotten different messages
from different Americans.

-----

Prabowo's account to me of his US
intelligence dealings is consistent with
what others told me.

I reported during the 1998 crisis: "As
one [US] embassy official described if
for me at the height of the
disappearances: 'Prabowo is our
fair-haired boy; he's the one who can do
no wrong'" (The
Nation [US], issue dated June 15,
1998; the article was released to the
press in May).

But Prabowo's US work extended far
beyond intelligence. As he described it
to me he collaborated closely in US
military actions, including bringing US
troops onto Indonesian soil.

Prabowo's statements to me are fully
consistent with internal Pentagon and
State Department documents, which, among
other things, back up his claim to have
facilitated US invasion planning.

These documents also indicate something
Prabowo did not mention to me: that the
US Special Forces Prabowo brought in
conducted at least two covert operations
in Indonesia that the Pentagon described
to the US Congress as "Classified …
compartmented activit[ies]."

The documents also make clear that from
the US government point of view, the
Pentagon was using Prabowo to undermine
Indonesia's nationalists.

Throughout his US collaboration, which
spanned Prabowo's army career, Prabowo
was often handled directly by Pentagon
officials from the highest levels of US
power.

They included Secretaries of Defense,
Pacific Commanders in Chief and US
Special Operations Commanders.

I reported in 1998: "Although Prabowo's
personal relish for atrocity is
legendary (a Timorese man told me of
having his leg and teeth broken by
Prabowo), high-level U.S. officials
paraded him this year as the political
crisis gathered steam. In January,
Defense Secretary William Cohen praised
the "very impressive … discipline" of
KOPASSUS." (The Nation [US], issue dated
June 15, 1998; the article was released
to the press in May).

I reported then: "[Cohen] pointedly
refused to call for ABRI restraint in
dealing with street demonstrations.
Asked about the overall message conveyed
by the visits, one official said, 'It's
simple. The U.S. is close to and loves
the army.' … Assistant Secretary of
State Stanley Roth has dined frequently
with [Prabowo] recently. When Secretary
Cohen visited, he raised eyebrows in
Jakarta by going to KOPASSUS
headquarters [and] [s]pending three
hours by Prabowo's side..." (The
Nation [US], issue dated March 30, 1998).

A book by Dana Priest of the Washington
Post -- who interviewed US officers who
worked with Prabowo -- said that Prabowo
"became known among the diplomatic corps
in Jakarta as 'Washington's man in
Indonesia.''"

Priest reported that while still young
Prabowo "quickly became the darling of
the American military, from which he
collected both experience and honors."

Priest recounts an anecdote about how
Prabowo feted a visiting US commander (
Commander in Chief of the US Pacific
Command [CINCPAC], Admiral Joseph
Prueher) by putting on a special
Kopassus demonstration to honor him:

"Prabowo ended another show for …
Prueher with his [Prabowo's] troops
standing shoulder to shoulder singing
the Indonesian version of the [US] 82d
Airborne Division's song. The adrenaline
on the reviewing stand was palpable,
said one observer. Prueher was pleased
and excited." (Dana Priest, The Mission:
Waging War and Keeping Peace with
America's Military," Norton, 2004.)

The story is an interesting example,
since Prabowo said to me that there were
other Pentagon leaders with whom he was
closer than he was with Prueher.

One he cited was the CINCPAC from March,
1991 to July '94, Admiral Charles R.
Larson, who later became a director of
the Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Prabowo even recounted some internal
White House - Pentagon gossip about
Admiral Larson, saying that he had been
"in line to be CNO [US Chief of Naval
Operations, the highest US Navy
position], but instead became the
Annapolis commandant [at the US Navy
cadet academy]."

------------

When the US-Prabowo relationship was
still in flower, Prabowo was, as a
former US Ambassador to Indonesia --
Robert Gelbard -- would later put it,
conducting himself as: "perhaps the
greatest violator of human rights in
contemporary times among the Indonesian
military. His deeds in the late 1990s
before democracy took hold were
shocking, even by TNI standards," (Radio
Australia interview, July 16, 2008).

But while Prabowo was actually doing
those deeds, his conduct was just fine
with Washington.

According to what US officials were
saying to Prabowo and the US Congress at
the time, General Prabowo was doing
precisely what Washington wanted him to
do.

The US Ambassador to Indonesia before
Gelbard -- ie., the one who was there as
Prabowo was still in power and still
Washington's man, Stapleton Roy -- wrote
a December 1996 cable (Jakarta 08651 , R
061039Z Dec96) citing Prabowo as a model
trainee.

(Another trainee singled out for praise
was General Hendropriono, who had been
implicated in the 1989 Lampung massacre
of Muslim activists and whose
intelligence unit later assassinated the
human rights hero Munir. Hendropriono is
now campaigning for Prabowo's
presidential opponent, Jokowi.).

Incredibly enough, the US cable even
inverted the facts to praise Prabowo for
the West Papua operation in which
Prabowo's men posed as the Red Cross and
went on to commit a massacre (See
the detailed account of what
actually happened from Edmund
McWilliams, who investigated the
killings as the US Embassy's chief
political officer).

Incredibly enough, the U.S. cable
even inverted the facts to praise
Prabowo for the West Papua operation
in which Prabowo's men posed as the
Red Cross and went on to commit a
massacre.

It argued that by training Prabowo and
Indonesian officers like him, the US
reaped major dividends in -- among other
things -- containing army nationalism.

The cable said: "Indonesian IMET
graduates return home with an
understanding of what we Americans stand
for and what we stand against."

IMET is one of the Pentagon programs
under which Prabowo was trained. It was
the first one the US grassroots movement
succeeded, through Congress, in cutting
off after the 1991 Dili massacre in
occupied East Timor (See the
first installment
of this Prabowo series).

The US cable continued:

"Home grown and locally educated ARBI
officers are less receptive to our
values, less convinced of our arguments,
and less responsive to our policies…
IMET graduates serve in key positions in
ABRI. During times when our relationship
has been under stress, it was the core
of U.S. - trained IMET alumni who
refused to heed the calls to 'shut out
the Americans.' We have been able to
retain some access and influence through
IMET alumni… Over the next several years
a major transition of power will occur
in Indonesia. The military will be an
important factor in how that transition
occurs, whether through a background
role as the ensurer of stability, or as
a more active player. Within Indonesia,
especially in the armed forces, an
internal debate pits two factions
against each other. One faction is
progressive, educated, and enlightened…
The other is introverted, ethnocentric,
anti-Western. It believes that foreign
education and training is a polluting
influence. We have an opportunity to
influence that debate and the future in
support of our long term interests," --
i.e. by backing Generals like Prabowo,
and facilitating his "shocking" deeds.

-------

Prabowo's remarks to me -- and his
record -- become especially interesting
in light of the claims that are being
made in his current campaign for
president.

This time, Prabowo is running as, in
effect,
the new Sukarno, the nationalist who
loudly insists that he will not bow to
America.

(In March, 1998, Amien Rais and I both
testified as witnesses before the US
Congress, in a hearing of the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus. At
that time Rais was blaming Prabowo for
the still-ongoing disappearance of the
Jakarta activists. In 2009 the
Australian press quoted Rais as
describing Prabowo as a "criminal." (The
Australian Financial Review; Wednesday,
February 25, 2009; Outsider Prompts
'General' Unease; by Angus Grigg).

----------

Prabowo told me he was especially close
to the US Special Forces, the commando
teams that do invasions and insertions
around the world.

His assertion is backed up by voluminous
public information. The Dana Priest book
notes, for example, that "The brass from
the US Special Operations Command was
especially enamored of Prabowo's troops.
General Wayne Downing, its commander
from 1993- 96, parachuted with
Kopassus." In 1996, she writes, Prabowo
was "the star of the [US] Pacific
Command's Special Operations Conference
in Hawaii."

Prabowo had served Washington
through years of torture and
massacre. The US had backed him
warmly, with sponsorship, weapons,
and public praise. But the instant
he lost an inter-army power struggle
in 1998, the US had jilted Prabowo.

Prabowo told me he was instrumental in
bringing US Special Forces into
Indonesia, in large part through JCET,
the Pentagon's Joint Combined Exchange
Training program.

After the US Congress cut off the IMET
training for ABRI in 1992, the Pentagon
went behind Congress's back and used a
JCET funding scheme to do military
drills in Indonesia that Congress didn't
approve or know about.

After my Jakarta press conference
releasing the documents -- and focusing
on JCET drills with Prabowo's Kopassus,
I was arrested and interrogated by the
Suharto security forces.

I remember that after the interrogator
slapped my intel file on the table, he
reacted with great equanimity as I
denounced the Suharto-ABRI-Prabowo-US
mass killings but suddenly became
annoyed when I offhandedly mentioned
Suharto corruption.

The JCET had gone far beyond IMET, which
had brought officers like Prabowo into
the US for training like that which
Prabowo received at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina (US Army Special Forces
Training Course, 1980; Fort Bragg is
home to the 82d Airborne, the US unit
Prabowo celebrated by having Kopassus
perform the 82d's fight song in
Indonesian [see above] ) and Fort
Benning, Georgia (US Advanced Infantry
Officers Course , 1985).

For JCET, large numbers of fully armed
US troops actually went into Indonesia
and, among other things, drilled with
ABRI on a range of skills including
Military Operations in Urban Terrain
(MOUT), Advanced Sniper Technique, air
assault, ground assault, sea assault,
surveillance, Nuclear Chemical
Biological (NBC), Combat Sapper, "ambush
skills," Explosives and Demolition, and
Psychological Operations (PSYOPS).

There were at least 41 such exercises.
The documents specify activities with
Kopassus Groups 1 through 5. The
principal unit conducting them was the
US 1st Special Forces Group but there
were also others, including the US
Marines.

This obviously constituted crucial US
support for Suharto, Prabowo and ABRI.

This was pointedly so since the US
troops were on the ground in Indonesia
during many ABRI atrocities, including
the activist disappearances and the
shootings of civilians in the uprising
against Suharto. The armed Americans
were drilling with and helping precisely
the ABRI units that were implicated in
these crimes, including Kopassus,
KOSTRAD, Kodam Jaya and others.

But Prabowo made a telling point to me:
these maneuvers he had set up with the
Americans had another side.

In addition to helping the US shore up
its favored dictators and generals of
the moment, they also helped the US get
what it wants in Indonesia.

Prabowo told me that JCET in large part
existed for the US -- and in particular
its Special Forces -- "to do recon,
practice for the invasion contingency."

Prabowo said: "They do recon, they see
the [Indonesian] terrain."

He referred to the US "special forces
contingency plan for entry to Indonesia,
Jakarta, Bandung etc."

Prabowo told me he had "briefly
discussed it [the invasion planning]
with them."

Prabowo said: "US invasion plans for
Indonesia are not unusual. They're a
super-power with intelligence
everywhere."

He described the US as "a higher power."

Prabowo was correct in noting that the
Pentagon prepares to invade most
everywhere.

Prabowo informed me of a then-new book,
"Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S.
Army Special Forces, by the White
House/Pentagon confidant Tom Clancy that
included as Prabowo put it "an
Indonesian [invasion] scenario with
atomic bombs."

I did not bother to look it up at the
time, but when I did so recently, I saw
that Prabowo was referring to a
dramatized scenario (Clancy was a
novelist but this book was mostly
nonfiction; US military officers loved
to talk to, and read, Tom Clancy) in
which US Special Forces invade Indonesia
after a terrorist atomic blast in the
Malukus .

At the time Prabowo and I spoke, mid
2001, the prospect of an actual invasion
seemed quite remote.

The last known time the US had directly
invaded Indonesia, in 1958 (an operation
that included bombing of Indonesia by
CIA pilots; as a child in US grade
school I happened to have slightly known
the son of one of them), the country was
run by Sukarno who was something of an
adversary of Washington.

Sukarno had confronted foreign
corporations and embraced rebellious
ideas: workers' rights, social welfare,
Indonesian and Third World nationalism
and Non-Alignment. These were ways of
thinking that Washington regarded as
unacceptable, "Communist." And in
addition Sukarno had allowed the
Communist party and peasant leagues to
organize.

In 1993, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of
Bobby Kennedy, described to me how
"Bobby hated that man, Sukarno."

Bobby Kennedy was the right-hand-man of
his brother, President John F. Kennedy
(1961-'63), and had gone to the trouble
of flying to Jakarta to confront Sukarno
personally.

But after Sukarno it was a different
story.

Prabowo's mentor and father-in-law,
General Suharto, was, from the start,
Washington's man.

The US backed and cheered Suharto and
ABRI when, after more than a decade of
US prodding, they finally overthrew
Sukarno and consolidated absolute power
with one of the largest massacres of the
20th Century.

More than 400,000, perhaps a million,
Indonesian civilians were slaughtered.
The big US press saluted the operation.
They called it "a gleam of light in
Asia" (The New York Times). The CIA
chipped in with a list of five thousand
"Communists" to be executed.

Suharto did as Washington wanted and
brought in the US corporations -- in
part under the guidance of one of his
leading economics ministers, Prabowo's
father. These were the same corporations
that, with the Prabowo clan and the US
intel veterans, went on to form the
USINDO lobby to safeguard their
Indonesia interests and the Pentagon's
sponsorship of TNI/ABRI.

Suharto is "our kind of guy," the
Clinton White House told the New York
Times.

So Washington wasn't invading their own
guy, and even after Suharto fell,
ABRI/TNI and corporate influence had
been such that Jakarta had stayed in
Washington's corner.

The state of US invasion contingency
thinking in the moment when Prabowo and
I were speaking was typified by a
discussion I had with a US Defense
Department planner on January 14, 1999.
Following a Marine Corps
military-civilian seminar on Indonesia,
this official remarked that US planning
focused on a speculative down-the-road
"Law of the Sea" scenario, in which the
US might decide to take some action if
Indonesia changed course politically and
decided to resist Washington's practices
regarding freely sailing its ships
through archipelagos.

During our discussion neither Prabowo
nor I talked of invasion as a real
possibility.

But two months after our second meeting
the September 11 attacks on the US
happened.

And in the wake of that there were
actually presented, at the White House
and at Camp David, proposals for a US
Special Forces attack on Indonesia.

The idea was for a dramatic strike to
send a message to the Muslim world. It
would involve simultaneous moves against
Indonesia and other countries.

This was advocated at the highest level.
President George W. Bush was at the
table. Pushing the plan were White House
Chief of Staff Andrew Card and,
apparently, Dick Cheney, the US Vice
President, and Donald Rumsfeld the
Secretary of Defense.

The matter is documented by Bob Woodward
of the Washington Post, who interviewed
meeting participants and evidently had
access to secret White House records.

Woodward writes: "White House Chief of
Staff Andrew Card said consideration
should be given to simultaneous actions
in other parts of the world such as
Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia,
Yemen or Somalia. 'If you had 15 SEAL
teams hitting 10 different targets on
the same day, all at once, around the
world that would send a message that
we're reaching out globally."

Later, on October 9, 2001 at a 1 am
meeting of the National Security
Council, Vice President Cheney "returned
to the hard questions they were skirting
… At the top of the list for expanding
anti-terror attacks were the
Philippines, Yemen and Indonesia." In
the Philippines, Woodward reports, there
were looking at Abu Sayyaf in the Muslim
south as a possible target, and "In
Indonesia, Muslim extremists were
everywhere." (Bob Woodward, "Bush at
War," 2002, Simon & Schuster).

This -- in my view -- criminal, lunatic
plan was, in the end, abandoned. But had
it not been, the Indonesia invasion
planning that Prabowo had helped
facilitate through JCET would have come
in handy to his sponsors in Washington.

--------

The
JCET documents we initially released
in March, 1998, were later supplemented
by others, some in internal
working-paper form.

They back up Prabowo's claims to me that
first, he was the key man in bringing
the US forces into Indonesia, and
second, that in doing so he was doing
the Pentagon a major service. And
interestingly, though these documents
were initially of a low or zero level of
classification, they still make a fairly
specific allusion to this laying the
groundwork for a possible future brief
invasion.

The documents also shed revealing
sidelights on how the Pentagon thinks
about Indonesians, and on the US's
extremely agile definition of "human
rights violations."

Finally they allude to two US covert
operations in Indonesia that grew out of
the Pentagon-Prabowo JCET collaboration.

The documents say that Prabowo, who is
referred to as the Kopassus commander ,
"open[ed] the door" to get the US forces
into Indonesia:

The Pentagon writes that they had been
"discussing JCET activities [with]
Indonesian planners at the highest
level, including the KOPASSUS
Commander," i.e.. General Prabowo.

Another Pentagon document states: "At
the outset of the JCET program most
activities were conducted with KOPASSUS
for a number of reasons. Most
importantly KOPASSUS [ie. Prabowo] was
anxious to train with U.S. SOF [Special
Operations Forces] and their standing as
a prestigious unit allowed them to open
the door for U.S. Forces to train in
Indonesia. They were also well
resourced, had access to training areas,
had specialized skill of training
interest to U.S. SOF and through their
willingness made in country training
with U.S. Forces acceptable to other
ABRI units."

Also, "After the 'ice was broken with
KOPASSUS a concerted effort was made to
expand the number of Indonesia units
participating in JCET activities such as
KOSTRAD, PUSDIKZI, KODIKLAT, SESKOAD,
PUSSENIF, Naval and Air SOF units..."

At one point the office of the CINCPAC,
the top US Pacific commander Prabowo
routinely dealt with, writes: "Within
Abri, Kopassus had the influence
required to begin training with the US
(when other units either could or would
not) and the resources to contribute to
this training. Kopassus opened the
door…"

The Pentagon went on to write about then
putting a foot in that door:

The Pentagon, of course, set up
its JCET with, and trained with,
Prabowo, which means that by the US
definition the "shocking" deeds that
Prabowo did were not quite bad
enough to constitute "human rights
violations."

"The JCET program in Indonesia had the
primary objective of providing training
opportunities for U.S. SOF [Special
Operations Forces]…It assisted us in
gaining access to Indonesian Armed
Forces units and leaders. It was
oriented in a progressive manner with
increasing options for U.S. SOF to train
in METL tasks …[and do ] training in
areas that are new or not available at
home station. It held the promise of
increasing interoperability and use of
excellent training facilities for
conventional as well as SOF by 'getting
a foot in the door' at BATU RAJA and
SIABU RANGE [ABRI facilities]."

Prabowo's JCET foot in the door allowed
the US Special Forces and other US units
to, as Prabowo put it to me, "do recon,
see the terrain," "practice for the
invasion contingency," in exercises held
in --- according to the documents -- at
least the following locations, beyond
Batu Raja and Siabu Range: Jakarta,
Bogor, Bandung, Surakarta, Serang,
Ciampea and Camara.

In one memo to the deceived Congress,
the Pentagon wrote: "Please recall that
the primary purpose of training under
Section 2011 [which was used for this
JCET gambit] is to improve US SOF
readiness. Any benefits to the host
nation [Indonesia] are incidental to
those we gain."

The documents refer to the JCETs
allowing the Special Forces to get ready
for action in Indonesia and environments
like it due to the training they
received from ABRI during the JCET
RECONDO action in things like "jungle
survival, tracking and counter tracking
techniques."

As to what might prompt the US to use
the Prabowo foot in the door to actually
strike in Indonesia, one Pentagon
document for Congress says, several
years before the 2001 White House
invasion hysteria: "JCET inspires a high
degree of confidence in the ability of
our SOF. This confidence and admiration
would likely lead to inclusion of our
SOF in an active role in any operation
to protect US lives or property should
they be threatened by terrorist or
separatist movements in Indonesia."

It still seems highly unlikely that the
US would invade its defacto ally,
Indonesia, but if they did they would be
building on the work done for them by
Prabowo.

----

At one point, writing to Congress, the
Pentagon says of its Indonesia JCET that
it would "not conduct training with
individuals involved in human rights
violations." The Pentagon, of course,
set up its JCET with, and trained with,
Prabowo, which means that by the US
definition the "shocking" deeds that
Prabowo did (Gelbard) were not quite bad
enough to constitute "human rights
violations."

This definition of "human rights
violations" is especially impressive in
light of another passage in the
documents. Prabowo's former handler, the
CINCPAC, writes regarding "the
abductions of the political activists
... We are certain of the involvement of
LTG Prabowo, MG Muchdi and COL Chairawan
[This was written after Prabowo fell
from power]. LTG Prabowo has retired and
MG Muchdi and COL Chairawan have been
relieved of all their duties and
responsibilities. They were all in
command of units that participated in
JCET activities."

By this, the Pentagon would seem
to mean it is excellent and lawful
to arm, train and do intelligence
work with the killers so long as the
US personnel do not pull the
triggers on the victims themselves.

Muchdi later went on, under
Hendropriono, to be implicated in the
assassination of Munir.

The Pentagon does not state what a US
protégé would have to do to be seen by
the US as committing a "human rights
violation," but it does seem to suggest
that whatever a US client like Prabowo
might do, evidence against him will
never be seen as quite sufficient:

"Credible evidence of gross violations
of human rights was only disclosed
following the May 1998 events in
Indonesia. In this area the DATT [the
DIA, that was handling Prabowo and
Chairawan] notes that, without
exception, prior to the events, every
accusation regarding possible human
rights violations made to the DAO
[again, the DIA] were [sic] followed up.
In every case information was
incomplete. Prior to May 1998, name,
unit designations, timing and/or
location of alleged violations were not
available from source(s) making
verification impossible. At no time
during the course of JCET activities
were we aware of training any unit or
personnel who had committed violations
of human rights. We did in fact, through
the excellent performance of our SOF
[Special Operations Forces] provide
examples of how a professional Armed
Force conducts military operations in a
lawful manner."

By this, the Pentagon would seem to mean
it is excellent and lawful to arm, train
and do intelligence work with the
killers so long as the US personnel do
not pull the triggers on the victims
themselves.

At one point the Pentagon writes: "JCET
provides an excellent example of how
professional soldiers conduct
themselves. Indonesians have attempted
to emulate this ..." Elsewhere: "U.S.
JCET participants provide an example of
a highly trained professional force that
has a high regard for the rule of law;
this encourages our hosts to emulate
their performance."

This implication of US moral superiority
pops up again and again. It is perhaps
one reason why the visa-denied Prabowo
seemed so hurt.

-----

Finally, the documents note that the US
ran, under cover of JCET, two covert
activities inside Indonesia, one in US
Fiscal Year 1995, the other in US Fiscal
Year 1996.

In FY '95 "there was one classified
deployment by US SOF to Indonesia. In
this activity, the three US SOF
personnel did not train, or train with,
the Indonesian military. This deployment
was not completed under the authority of
Title 10, Section 2011. Classified
details of this compartmented activity
will be provided, upon request, through
the appropriate channels."

In FY '96: "there was one classified
deployment by US SOF to Indonesia. In
this activity, eight US personnel did
train, and train with, Indonesian
military forces. This deployment was not
conducted under the authority of Title
10, Section 2011. Classified details of
this compartmented activity will be
provided upon request, through the
appropriate channels."

Though they won't get an answer, the
Indonesian public might want to make
such a request.

Both ops were made possible by the work
of the nationalist general, Prabowo.